Elizabeth Taylor

Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney's Humor Category Edited by Dave Eggers, Kevin Shay, Lee Epstein, John Warner, and Suzanne Kleid Knopf, 239 pages, $16.95 This...

Prime Times: Writers on Their Favorite Television Shows Edited and with an introduction by Douglas Bauer Crown, 223 pages, $23, $12.95 paper Nick Hornby on "The West Wing," Elizabeth McCracken...

Alfred Hitchcock's women are remote, icy and extremely fashionable. In a modern twist, these icons are updated this week, in "Dial F for fashion," into hip women who exude strength...

A William Maxwell Portrait: Memories and Appreciations Edited and introduced by Charles Baxter, Michael Collier and Edward Hirsch Norton, 234 pages, $23.95 Illinois native William Maxwell, who was fiction editor...

The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories Edited by Ben Marcus Anchor, 480 pages, $13 paper With so many great short-story anthologies around, why read this one? There's a...

In Carol Anshaw's novel "Aquamarine," 17-year-old swimmer Jesse Austin barely misses a gold medal in the 100-meter women's freestyle event and is haunted by the loss. Anshaw weaves together three...

The Power and the Story: How the Crafted Presidential Narrative Has Determined Political Success From George Washington to George W. Bush By Evan Cornog Penguin, 307 pages, $24.95 Creation of...

Teachers and journalists have a special affinity. We all provide information, but we also interpret and debate events and ideas. We are animated by a shared sense that education is...

"Man masters nature, not by force but by understanding," said British scientist Jacob Bronowski in a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1953. "This is why science has...

Chicago: The Second City By A.J. Liebling, drawings by Steinberg University of Nebraska Press, 143 pages, $15.95 Alex Kotlowitz's "Never a City So Real" has a different style and tone...